Thursday, October 05, 2006

It was a great night for me last night as I took down the Mookie. The funny thing about it all is that I wouldn’t have done it without the help of my wife.

I chipped up early after raising pre-flop a few time when I get pocket jacks in an early position. I do a standard 3x raise only to get reraised by jcr47. At this time my wife starts to get on my case for not putting my clothes away or something and continues to berate me for other selfish acts that I frequently employee, you know, like playing poker. Any way I come back over the top to truly find out where I’m at and jcr47 pushes all-in. I think for quite awhile and end up calling his push even though I thought I was behind. Family tilt had set in and I figured I’d go be the good husband if I got knocked out. My jacks were no good to pocket kings until I flopped a set and put on a really bad beat. It sucks when a good player gets hit like that but I’m not giving the chips back. Anyway, that’s the first time my jacks have won a hand pre-flop in the last six times I’ve gotten them. And I had to come from behind to do it.

Anyway, I stayed tight most of the night and got respect for my raises. I made a play at slb at one point and he pushed back making me through away my marginal hand. He dropped the hammer which would have beat me anyway so I figure it was a good laydown. As we got further into the tourney I won a race vs. surfkiller when I pushed with pocket 4s and out raced his A9 suited. I bought some blinds and came over the top a few times and continued to chip up at a slow crawl. I did make a bad decision at one point when I thought summer_babe was making a play on me. She had raised my blinds a few time in a row so I re-raised. She pushed and I was getting 3-1 on my money so I called with some thing like K10. Her 9’s held up. I eventually got to the final table with these players.

SurfKillerSlb159dnasty13 fastpitch27Iakaris hoyazosurflexusToddCommishGCox25My final table play was very tight at first. With 8 players leftToddCommish went all-in for around 3000 chips. I was in the BB and called with KT. I needed to defend my blind and would have had chips left so I made the call figuring at worst it was a coin flip. It was but I hit the turn and knocked him out. This was really one of the three key hands I won and it put me in a much stronger position.I sat back and waited for opportunities at this point and did have the privilege of dropping the hammer on slb159. He had raised me a couple of times and knew he would drop unless he had a monster. My tight image was still working.

With 4 players left I flopped the nut straight from the SB. I check and dnasty raised 1000. Hoyazo went all-in and I reraised all-in in hopes of a triple up. Dnasty folded and hoyazo’s top pair was no good.When we got down to 3 players I opened up my game a lot. I was the short stack and needed to gain chips so I increased my pre-flop raising. I slowly chipped up over time and at one point, all three of us were within a few thousand of each other. Eventually, dnasty knocked out slb159 and we’re heads up. He held a 2-1 chip lead so I needed to work hard.I started with pressure and continued with pressure. If I felt any weakness, I raised and chipped up to even. Dnasty then turned it around for a while but I continued to push any edge I felt I had. We stayed even for a long time when I’m dealt 53. He raises 3x and I call. I hit a 5 on the flop and check. He puts out a nice continuation bet and I pop it. He folds. I figured him for a big ace and with a low flop I was going to find out where I stood.A few hands later I made a standard 3x raise with AJ. He re-raises me so I make it 16,000 to stay. He calls. If he had a pair or a really big ace I think he would have pushed so I have him on a strong king or a medium ace. A rag flop hits the board and we get it all-in the middle. He flips over A8 and my J holds up for the win.

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I was very lucky early when I sucked out on jrc47. Most of my coin flips held up and the ones that didn’t hold up were not crippling. Thanks Mookie. I’ll try to defend with honor.One thing I like to say is that all of you are great players. The pressure that virtually everyone continued to put on me made me raise my game. I knew coming in that success at this tourney is a hard thing to come by and now I know why. I felt like a flyweight fighting a heavyweight all night. Thanks for the great time and challenging me in so many different ways.

I played one other time a few months ago. I wasn't able to play almost all summer because of softball and it is also a church night. My saving grave was a sick child who was home with me. Otherwise I would not have been playing.